Hood added: “Ryan is a well-established and quality hooker, and I spoke to him earlier this week and said I was thinking of bringing Reece in for the weekend – and he backed the decision all the way.

“For someone like Ryan to say Reece is ready is a big endorsement, and we are excited by what he can do.”

Not looking past overturning Thunder’s six-point deficit thanks to the RFL administration penalty, Hood continued: “All we are focusing on is getting from minus six to zero – once we do we can kick on from there.

“Until we get back to zero we are not looking past that, so we have not talked about the league as a whole and the season in its entirety.

“We totally understand why the RFL docked those points and we know that was something they had to do, but the sooner we return to zero the better.”